This was an interesting week – the Fourth of July Holiday rather put an interesting twist on the schedule. We passed a quiet Fourth, simply enjoying time with Dustin, Alexis, and the baby. Dustin cook some wonderful ribs on the BBQ! We didn’t leave for the fireworks because we weren’t sure how the dogs and cats would do. Hope your celebrations were fun and safe. The rest of the week has been relatively quiet as well. Here’s just a few samples from this week’s photo opportunities. Continue reading
Week Review
07 Friday Jul 2017
Posted in Co-workers, Fun Stuff, Projects
It’s a holiday, so I’m making this short. We took it a bit easy today. It started off pretty exciting… when Sue went in to get some Timothy hay for the goats, this lizard cutie, poked his head out and said, “What you lookin’ at, Willis?” She said he didn’t move out of the way (I think he might have been a little cold) and Sue just tried to take a bit of hay without disturbing him. We’ve been seeing more and more lizards lately and we sure like them. They help keep the spiders and the ants under control – of which there many. 
Lining Stonehenge. Here is the Circle Garden… the lining is almost complete, we just need to add a little bit around the edges where the wire didn’t go up high enough. The bad thing is, by the time we’re done with this… it’s going to be too windy to do the following steps until maybe Sunday. Saturday might be calm enough… we have to pick up manure from Mr. Kelly before we can lay down the cardboard, so that the manure goes right on top of it. Moving manure in winds upwards of 36 mph is not a fun job! Neither is trying to work with cardboard that wants to be free to fly! We’ll just have to gauge the severity of the winds and see. We might be on hold for a few days.
Let us out! This is showing how we’ve had to resort to multiple barriers to keep the Specks in their appointed area at night. The just want to be OUT! We’re a little hesitant to allow them access to the general population because they are still so small, comparatively. They are a pretty small breed anyway (see 
Speaking of the top 10. Here’s a shot of a day in the life of the Delawares. It’s been hot, so everyone finds some shade during the afternoon. This guy is on watch. I think he might be the rooster… some of the others are peeking out from under the chickshaw. They stay like this for a long time. It’s a cool place to rest during the heat of the day, but the rooster is en garde! By about 4:30/5:00 p.m. the temps start dropping and they again are out in the grass, chasing bugs and scratching up the ground. They’ve got it pretty good. Last night, around 7:30 p.m., they were still out and about; we had to chase everybody in.
And then, there’s Roman. One of the different watering options we’ve tried lately is the bucket with the 
to him 🙂 He thinks he’s outgrown the cuddling thing; he’ll follow us around, or come over to talk to us, but don’t even think about holding him. Yet, he still tries to get into his baby tub. Actually, he does get into his baby tub, he just spills out of it! But he can sit inside the tub and then drill around the ground outside of it. I guess he’s happy. Silly big goose.
Broody Much? We still have two hens that think they’d really like to sit. Here are the two culprits. Imen, the black hen, finds a nesting box where another hen has laid and claims it as her own – we take it. The Buff in the corner gets periodically chased out by the others, they lay their eggs and she sneaks back in to claim them – we take them. Today I just picked her up off the nest and set her down outside of it, have you ever heard of the term “ruffled feathers”? I think her photo was used to illustrate the term in the Dictionary of American Slang. Just sayin’.
The Ducks have been thoroughly enjoying the little swimming pools – who wouldn’t with the weather we’ve been having. They do have a tendency to make the water dirty really quickly, though. Today we were changing it in the lower pool and they were patiently waiting for it to be filled. Pretty darn cute, those ducks. They really don’t seem to mind any of the weather we’ve been having; heat, cold, wind, rain (ok, not much rain) – they love it all!
Are they Ranging? I’m not exactly sure how our Gray Rangers got their name – ours don’t really tend to range a whole lot. It is true that they seem to run hotter than the other breeds so, during the day, they find a spot very close to water and/or food and just plop there for the afternoon. Happy as clams. Then once it gets cooler, towards evening, they have actually ranged quite farm from the coop. We have had to make sure we check everywhere for them – they hide in the most interesting areas.
“What are you doing this weekend?” Everyone seemed to ask me that today; the admin at work, the chiropractor, the mailman, the teller at the bank today. Quite frankly, I wasn’t really too sure. Mom and dad sent a vacuum (that works) home with me; I could do housework, there are still seeds that I want to plant, we’re supposed to be getting berry bushes that need to get into ground, we need to finish painting the chicken coop before the monsoon season starts, we also need to work on the circle garden. I wish I had started this blog yesterday so that I could say, “We’re making Stonehenge.” Now, after researching a bit for this blog, and having a discussion with Sue, I think that’s where the focus is going to lie- our own little Stonehenge, otherwise known as the circle garden. 
Things are never quiet for long. Sue has finished several projects (that we’ve already discussed) and is lining up several more. Most recently, because we’re contemplating graduating the Delawares to the Biggies side, she built an “escape hatch” for them. A place they can get into, if they need to escape from the Biggies and still get food and water. There’s a door on the left side that we can use to put the water and food in there for them. The teens can get in, but not the Biggies – well Maeve might be able to fit, but – in general – she doesn’t really bother the littles. Sue made it really sturdy because we’ll be
using it off and on for a while yet… and she connected it to the footer wall so it won’t simply blow away the next big wind storm (tomorrow and Sunday and Monday). I think it’ll work really well. When we do move the Delawares, we’re not sure how Roman is going to like it. He’s sort of found his tribe with the chickens AND the ducks. They’ve become a big family, they still squabble a bit, but – hey – what family doesn’t. At least there hasn’t been any blood lately. The second photo here is last night, just before they were all ready to bed down. Roman sometimes protects the chickens when the ducks want to run after them, and sometimes he runs after them himself, when they get too much into his personal space. The ducks seem to think of him as an annoying younger brother. We may end up moving the family as one; Delawares, Ducks, and Roman. 
The depression garden (that is, the garden that I planted in the depression) comes up in the loss category too. I think that any of the old seeds that germinated were sought out and eaten by the dang gophers. There were little mounds all through out the garden. Then – after that, and more recently – the coyote melon plants just took over! In the photo on the left, all that green is coyote melon plant. Sue decided that she would spend some
time every day digging up coyote melons. They have a tuberous root that is rather deceptive. Small plants can have humongous roots and vice versa. She spent an hour one day and got a huge pile of roots, but the number of plants was pretty low. These are also the type of plant where, if you leave a small piece of the tuber in the ground, a plant will grow; kind of like potatoes. So, if we work together this year, we might be able to clear a lot of them out… but chances are, we’ll be doing it for a number of years to come. Here’s a photo of some of the tubers – foot in the photo for size reference. Remember – I have a big foot!
In the win column would be the squash that was planted in with the trench trees. This is the reverse Hugelkultur bed that we built up in the already existing trench. (see previous post 
We’ve just had so much fun this week watching the integration of Goose, Ducks, and Chicks. So far, no animals have been harmed! We’ve still got the Rangers and the Speckleds separated from everyone, and even had to separate the Specks from the Rangers; the Rangers were just outgrowing the Specks all around and we were afraid we’d loose another one. So the Specks are now in Roman’s old cage and thriving well there. They don’t have to compete for water or food, nor are they going to be pushed away from the heat light. This will give them time to catch up! The Rangers are meant to mature more quickly because they’re meat birds, where we’ll keep the Specks more for eggs. We’ll keep one rooster and and any hens we have and then process the others. 
Today the littles got to go out for the first time. We thought that they would enjoy the freedom and the opportunity to go outside. We also thought that, since they’d been living in the brooder side all this time, they could go outside during the day and come back in at night. So we opened the bottom brooder and they tentatively crept out. There was a lot to investigate inside, in the foreground you see the ducks night time area, to the left towards the back is Roman’s little sleeping quarters, and the top shelf of the brooder – at back – has the newest littles, the newbies. I wasn’t there for the grand exit, but Sue said that they didn’t get brave enough for the full outdoor adventure. The second time she tried, Roman was out on a walk about and he chased them all back in! We’ll just keep trying until they get used to the idea. 
Wing and a Prayer 